High-point of the Euros for me was watching Michel Platini's body-language while seated next to Angela Merkl during the Germany v Turkey semi-final.
Arms folded tightly and shoulders hunched, the former French international stared fixedly ahead rather than engage the German Fuhrerine in any form of talk, small or otherwise. For long periods of the game he glued his ear to a mobile phone, and yet did not appear to be saying anything: perhaps there was nobody on the other end. When the Germans scored their winner and Geli leapt from her seat to clap hands in a cutesy, infantile manner, Michel's cringe was like a hedgehog taking evasion action.
This tableau up in the stands was of a similar level of comedic quality to the game itself, in which the country that's invaded almost everyone else took on the one country which has invaded Germany.
It turned out to be a unique contest wherein both sides decided to see what soccer might be like without defences, and the Germans elected to become statues unmoved by the intricate attacking patterns of the Turks. The score at half-time should've been about 18-3 to Turkey - but the Germans being the Germans, it was 1-1.
I do not rate this German side at all. As a recognition of its ordinariness, the manager has made the expressive but rarely explosive Michael Ballack captain. And it's hard to take any team seriously when the only other striker's name means 'he who mounts pigs'.
For some reason, the Germans spent much of the game in suspended near-catatonic lack of animation. Outplayed by the Turks, the latter's equally woeful defensive line eventually let them down. Somehow, as the men in white high-fived at the end, nobody in Europe could believe they had won 3-2. Many viewers didn't know they'd won, thanks to yet another Swiss thunderstorm refusing to allow satellite transmission links to, as it were, link. The BBC switched to Radio Five Live's commentary, itself bizarrely out of sync with the action when it finally returned. For a few minutes before Motson's mellifluity came back, it looked like the Geordie on 5Live could see into the future.
It has been a very strange tournament altogether, although often entertaining. One team after another has looked doomed, but somehow survived; or seemed blessed, and yet somehow been eliminated. The Dutch (my pick) were oddly outplayed by a fine Russian side, who then inexplicably stopped playing halfway through their semi-final with Spain and got a 3-0 walloping. The Turks - completely outclassed by Croatia - contrived to win that tie on penalties, and then lose their
GOALMOUTH
Euro, Ronaldo, emphatico, scorchio
big chance against a German petrified forest.
Russia's manager Guus Hiddink is a genius in the mold of Brian Clough and Alf Ramsey, in that he has that stardust ability to turn donkeys into thoroughbreds while they are under his management. But in the semi-final against Spain, it seemed almost as if at half-time he had said to his players, "Look, there's a syndicate on a 200-1 bet offering to cut us in if we lose, so let's just lie back and enjoy it from now on". Perhaps there's something in the water out there: Germany drank it, went to sleep and won, while the Russians did the same but lost.
Either way, we left our screens on Thursday night pondering over a final which will be (as David Pleat managed to put it) "between German power and Spanish creativity". He made it sound like Hitler v Picasso, but then David's always been a one for the cliche wrapped in a faux pas and surrounded by spoonerisms. He is to soccer commentary what Angela Merkl is to Michel Platini.
Portugal having been eliminated earlier on, everyone now looked for signs of white smoke from the backside of Christiano Ronaldo. But the ethereal star seemed also to have several mirrors up there.
With much steam emerging from the ears of Sir Alex Ferguson during this sorry saga, Ronaldo has done everything but give the same straight answer twice in a row. After the Champions League triumph with United, the Portuguese genius was emphatico: he stay. By the opening games of Euro 2008, he was not so sure - but Real Madrid was emphatico: he come. After Portugal went out, he was once more emphatico: he love play Madrid. Emphatico Madrid, or Real Madrid? He couldn't say, because it wasn't his decision - it was up to Real to pay what United wanted. But United were also emphatico: he stay.
One thing Christiano Ronaldo has never really been is sympatico. In his early months at Old Trafford, his immature showboating style earned the gifted Portuguese an image as a selfish show-off, but over time Ferguson focused the player, made him far more direct - and thus deadly.
During the 2006 World Cup, Ronaldo made enemies of all soccer supporters outside Trafford Park (and for a while, Wayne Rooney) by getting Potato Head sent off for a 'stamping' that never was. (Ronaldo's wink to his team management immediately afterwards was a disgrace and should have been fully investigated. But such is the nature of top-flight football these days, the gesture was never even challenged by the authorities.)
Having somehow charmed his way back into the United camp, he played a huge part in Manyoo's Premiership triumph - and of course without his record 42-goal tally this season, the Reds would never have got even close to their Champions League and Premiership brace. But unsavoury publicity continues to surround the player. His propensity to penalty-area diving is all too obvious. A close friend of mine also reports appalling behaviour during a recent advertising shoot, and rumours of misbehaviour with the fairer sex continue to circulate - as indeed do those alleging he may be playing for both sides in the Gender League.
It's hard to imagine any circumstances in which Christiano can now have any credibility with the faithful who traipse year in year out down Matt Busby Way to the Theatre of Dreams. But with Sir Alex Ferguson, one just never knows. For me, Ronaldo is not (and never could be) another George Best. But he is the most outstanding player at United, and the manager knows this only too well. Even at £70 million, the Portuguese winger would be worth every penny to Real - and an incalculable loss to Manchester United.
In the build-up to the Final, Germany's coaching staff made great play of an injury to their midfielder Ballack. He was 'doubtful', then 'missing training sessions to give himself the best chance'. If he started (the word was) he wouldn't finish.
It was all kiddology of course: Ballack actually looked quicker and sharper than he had at any time in the tournament - but as so often with this player, he didn't score. These days, a striker who scores below par is given a degree of respect by calling him a 'midfielder' - exactly the same is true of Ballack's team-mate at Chelsea Frank Lampard.
There are no such doubts about Liverpool's Golden Boy Torres, and his winner in the 33rd minute was a striker's gem - intelligence, power and a delightful chip over the keeper to send the ball sweetly home.
Thereafter, apart from one spirited burst from the fiftieth to the sixtieth minute, the Germans were outplayed, outthought and in the end outclassed by a Spanish side which should've had at least five goals. But that's been true of almost all Germany's opposition in this tournament: it seems unlikely that their national side has ever been so slow, square and static - and a miracle that they made it to the final.
By contrast, Spain's Ramos (for me, the man of the match) and Senna dominated in defence, their performances each a superb combination of grit, skill and brains. If there are three reasons, in fact, why Spain has at last lived up to its promise for the first time in forty-four years, then they must be Torres, Ramos and Senna.
I'm quite certain it's forty-four years since they won anything, because John Motson mentioned the fact some eighteen times during the play. "It was 1964 if I remember rightly" he began during the warm-up, as if about to break into McGonagal verse:
Twas in the year of 1964
and 'tad been forty odd years and four
since plucky Spain did the trick before
but now they were back and hungry for more
We will never know what Mark Lawrenson's facial expressions were over the years as Motty trotted out his trainspotter drivel, because this was the old stager's last big commentary - so the chance has gone to rig up a micro-camera and watch Marky's benign inscrutability at work.
Mr L himself, of course, is not exactly behind the lines when it comes to the leaden joke delivered with childish self-satisfaction. But it has often seemed to me over the decades that Lawrenson's face almost travelled through another medium to the viewer, it's message something like 'one day he'll retire, and I'll be free of all this....free....'